How This New Government Ruling Destroys the Franchise Business Model
- By James Sherk - The
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) just issued a ruling likely to destroy the
franchise business model. To understand how far-reaching this could be, it
should be noted that almost 9
million Americans work at over 780,000 franchised businesses. From Jiffy
Lube to Terminex to Wendy’s, franchises enable many Americans to run their own
small businesses without having to design and market everything from scratch.
Franchising is a particularly important opportunity for minority entrepreneurs.
...The recent ruling will probably force local franchises to give
up total control of day-to-day business decisions to their corporate sponsors,
turning thousands of investor entrepreneurs who currently own and manage a local
business into middle managers in a giant corporate entity. ...The NRLB is now
saying that companies that contract with others firms for services or set
quality standards in exchange for brand licensing implicitly influence the other
firms’ employees and should be required to bargain collectively with them. If
allowed to stand, this new interpretation will effectively destroy the franchise
model of business.
...The Goal Is to Unionize Franchise Employees. The slim NLRB
majority that imposed this decision in a party-line vote appears to hope that it
will aid union organizing efforts. Unions have largely failed to organize
franchise employees. They have not persuaded the workers that the benefits of
union representation outweigh the cost of union dues. Now they hope to be able
to organize from the top down, pressuring large corporate management through
public relations campaigns to accept unionization without having to go to the
trouble of actually convincing workers that it will be to their benefit.

James Sherk Tells Nevada Lawmakers Why Public Sector Unions Are Bad
Policy By Maureen
Collins - In his testimony, Sherk argues that unions for government
employees are bad policy, because unlike private sector unions they: Undermine
representative government: “Collective bargaining in government takes away the
final say on public policy from voters’ elected representatives. It forces them
to negotiate a contract with union leaders, excluding all other citizens and
potential workers from the bargaining table.” Come with no checks and
balances: Private sector unions have competition with non-unionized businesses,
but government employee unions do not: ...Inflate pay for their
workers: “Collective bargaining has considerably inflated the compensation of
Nevada’s local government employees. It has produced benefit packages that few
private-sector workers ever see. In many local governments, employees pay
nothing toward the cost of their extensive health insurance benefits.” Follow this
link to see the rest of Sherk’s testimony.

Meet the Social Studies Teacher Who Ditched the School Union and Created
His Own - By
Kelsey Harkness -
“We believe in the collective bargaining process. However, we’re anti-big
union,” Perialas told The Daily Signal in an interview. “The big bureaucratic
unions, whether it be in education, the auto industry, or any industry, they’ve
become so large that they’re not responsive to the very people, the income
stream [they represent]. We left and we now very happily have the Michigan
Education Association in the rear view.” Watch the interview to hear Perialas’
full story.

This is
why unions hate worker freedom By Tim
Dunkin - Unions hate worker freedom. Despite the chest-thumping propaganda
that unions "saved the worker in America," the fact is that unions represent a
business/labor model that simply is
not relevant to our economy today. This, as much as the increased prevalence
of right-to-work laws, is why they are dying out. Instead of adapting to the
times, unions generally seek to freeze in place the sort of rust-belt economic
model that peaked in the 1950s – which is a great example of the typical
intellectual bankruptcy that is rife throughout liberalism. Part of this
effort involves trapping workers in union shops were the union will "represent"
them at the price of extorted dues taken out of their hard-earned paychecks.
Obviously enough, the unions have a vested interest in forcing as many workers
as possible to contribute. After all, expensive cigars and Cadillacs for the
union bosses aren't cheap.
Propagandists for the unions will try to claim that workers
"really" like unions and want to be unionized. The very fact that so many
workers bolt the unions when they can – as evidenced by the steep declines in
union revenues seen in Wisconsin, to give one example – suggests that this is
not the case. Likewise does the steadily declining membership rolls of most of
the major unions in America. Sure, there are always some workers out there who
want to belong to a union, but many don't, and right-to-work laws and laws such
as Wisconsin's provide them the opportunity to make their own choice.
The issue is really about worker freedom. Right-to-work laws do not
outlaw unions or forbid union membership. These laws do not infringe upon the
First Amendment right of workers to organize and associate together. What they
do, instead, is to affirm the First Amendment right of workers to NOT organize
or associate with a union if they don't choose to. Freedom to choose to join a
union must by necessity carry with it the converse freedom to not join a union.
Forced unionization is also unjust because of the fact that unions
essentially serve as fundraising arms for the Democratic Party. Yet, large
numbers of blue-collar workers support conservative and Republican causes and
candidates. By requiring the deduction of union dues so that the unions can
throw large bags of money at left-wing candidates and movements, at best the
unions are misrepresenting many of their own constituent workers, and at worst
they are disenfranchising them. Millions of workers in America see some of their
money taken and given to candidates and causes they never would themselves
support.
...As we can see in Wisconsin, worker freedom works. Wisconsin has
seen declines in the funding (and therefore the power) of economically
cumbersome unions. At the same time, Wisconsin has also seen its unemployment
rate continue to decline, and also faces the somewhat unusual "problem" of
having a budget surplus (due to increased economic activity in the state) that
it has to figure out what to do with. Scott Walker's solutions have worked in
Wisconsin – we should work to see them extended all across the country.

3 Ways to Reform Labor and Save Our Country By
Bob Beauprez -
Editor, Bob Beauprez's Note: The following commentary on labor reforms is
authored by 18 economists and labor experts, including A Line of Sight
Contributing Editor, Sanjai Bhagat, Provost Professor of Finance at the
University of Colorado. The article was originally published July 10, 2012 by
Fox News.com. A full list of the authors may be found by
clicking here. ...First, steer our cities away from insolvency and
bankruptcy by passing meaningful reforms to public employee pensions and
compensation. ...make modest pension cuts that will save taxpayers
millions. (Unions responded by filing suit.) ...The next step, at the
state level, is to advance right-to-work legislation that gives
employees a choice in union membership. A key tenet of our democracy is freedom
of association—including the freedom to form a union. But what about the right
of a worker to choose not to join a union? In the 27 states that haven’t passed
right-to-work laws, this right doesn’t exist. ...The last step to effective
labor reform should happen at the federal level, with the passage of the
Employee Rights Act (ERA), a piece of legislation sponsored by Sen.
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). The provisions of the ERA
include reinforcing the right to a secret ballot union election, regular
recertification votes on whether employees wish to remain part of a union, and
paycheck protection to allow employees to prevent their dues from going to
politicians they don’t support. Unsurprisingly, in polling commissioned
from Opinion Research Corporation, these provisions receive 80 percent
support—even in union households.

End the
Secrecy in Public Union Collective Bargaining The Bureau of Labor
Statistics estimates that state and local government employees earn 43 percent
more than their private sector counterparts... ...In 11 states, secret
government union collective bargaining is law, a lack of oversight that should
be corrected. This lack of oversight often leads to unions employing strong-arm
tactics to receive higher wages and benefits at taxpayer expense, say Nick
Dranias, Bryron Schlomach and Stephen Slivinski of the Goldwater Institute.
...Even when transparency in bargaining is enacted, government unions still have
access to public records of government finance and can assess what the
municipality can afford. Unions around the country have a lot to lose if
transparency becomes the guiding principle for collective bargaining
negotiations. Dranias, Schlomach and Slivinski believe that all bargaining
should take place at open meetings. All meetings should be documented verbatim
and those documents should be available as part of public record. Taxpayers and
budgets everywhere will benefit if transparency and accountability is required
in government union collective bargaining. ...Source: Nick Dranias, Bryron
Schlomach and Stephen Slivinski, "Airing
Out the Smoke-filled Rooms: Bringing Transparency to Public Union Collective
Bargaining," Goldwater Institute, January 17, 2013.

Understanding The
Employee Rights Act By: UnionFacts.com - It’s been more than 50
years since Congress overhauled America’s labor laws. During the following
decades, we’ve witnessed a workplace revolution that has fostered innovation,
opportunity, and flexibility for America’s 150 million member strong workforce.
It is time we reform our labor laws to put employees’ rights first, not
self-interested labor union leaders. Now is the time for the Employee Rights
Act.

The legislation would:
o
Secret Ballot Elections — Guarantee employees the right to a secret ballot
election when choosing whether or not to join a union.
o
Union Recertification Elections — Require that all unionized workplaces hold
a secret ballot referendum every three years to determine whether the employee
wish to remain represented by their current union.
o
Paycheck Protection — Gives employee the right to refuse support for a
unions’ political operations or support of political parties or candidates.
o
Standardized Election Timing — Require unions and employers to give
employees a minimum of 40 days to hear from both sides when deciding whether or
not to join a union. o
Decertification Coercion Prevention — Strengthen the National Labor
Relations Act to prohibit unions from intimidating or coercing employees from
exercising their rights, including their right to decertify the union.
o
Secret Ballot Strike Vote — Give employee the right to a secret ballot vote
before union leaders can declare a strike.
o
Criminalizes Union Threats — Forbid unions from using violence, or threats
thereof, in an effort to coerce employees.
o Unions Are
the Political Dinosaur in the Room - Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh - A famous
radio talk show host asked rhetorically why unions have supported and financed
the Occupy Wall Street movement. The answer is quite simple. Occupiers are
asking for communism. In communism, the entire labor force is unionized. It is
in the best interest of unions to promote communism since union membership in
this country is down to single digits and not likely to rebound. Unions were
necessary at the turn of the 20th century to protect workers from dangerous
working conditions. Unions survive today as a political tool to influence
elections and exert economic power.

o Rescuing Detroit From Its
Own Folly (PatriotPost.us) - “It is not the business of government … to
preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly,” said Henry George, a
19th century American writer and politician. Unfortunately, that advice is
rarely heeded today.
The Detroit Free Press reports that the federal government is considering
providing $100 million to ease the pain of Detroit's ongoing city pension
reforms. The money technically would not be provided directly to the city's
pension program, instead going to Michigan's state fund for “blight
remediation,” which would allow the state to provide the same amount to Detroit.
But the practical result is the same – the U.S. taxpayer getting stuck with part
of the bill for Detroit's decades of foolish, unsupportable pension promises. In
our current environment where billions and even trillions are common reference
points, $100 million may seem like small potatoes. But the precedent set by such
a bailout would be far-reaching and potentially devastating to the nation's
already shaky financial health.
Why? Because Detroit is just one example of a major city with
unsupportable public-employee pension obligations – in fact it's only number 10
on the list of the worst offenders. The top 10, in order of pension debt per
capita: Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Columbus, Los Angeles, San
Jose, San Diego, Denver and Detroit. Considering that public employees are among
the most loyal and vocal of Democrat constituencies, the risk of political
favoritism is obvious.
As if that's not alarming enough, consider that looming larger
behind these cities are states with the same pension debt problems, led by
California's estimated $170 billion sea of red ink (and that is the LA Times'
“best case” estimate – the worst case is more than $500 billion). Note, that is
not California's total debt; just its un-funded pension obligations. Barack
Obama's home state of Illinois is next with more than $100 billion in un-funded
pension debt. If the federal government begins handing out money to save major
cities from their pension debts, you can bet the states will come begging soon
after. And the worst pension shortfalls at the state level are concentrated,
unsurprisingly, in blue states like California. As Mark
Alexander wrote last year, it's no coincidence that Detroit is in the shape
it's in.
Regardless of the politics of the cities or states in question, there is the
larger question of why the ordinary taxpayer should have to bail out a public
employee pension system. Why does a farmer in Idaho or a construction worker in
Oklahoma have to fork over money to support a retired city worker in Detroit or
Los Angeles? The great majority of Americans are private sector workers whose
taxes have always supported the salaries of public employees in their state. Are
they now to be forced to pay for the foolish retirement plans promised to state
and local public employees?
Yet there is still some room for optimism in the public pension
debt problem. In December the Illinois legislature passed a bill that would
implement major reforms to the pension system, and did so in the face of
enormous resistance from public-employee unions. Other states have also been
forced into making difficult pension choices in recent years. But the temptation
of seeking federal money to pay for local or state pension debt will always
exist so long as the federal government is willing to provide it. Which makes
Detroit an important test case in whether the government – meaning the taxpayers
– have to rescue the fools from the consequences of their folly.

o The Left Versus Minorities
- By Thomas Sowell - Not all
charter schools are successful, of course, but the ones that are completely
undermine the excuses for failure in the public school system as a whole. That
is why teachers' unions hate them, as a threat not only to their members' jobs
but a threat to the whole range of frauds and fetishes in the educational
system. The autonomy of charter schools is also a threat to the powers that be,
who want to impose their own vision on the schools, regardless of what the
parents want. ... Charter schools take power from politicians and bureaucrats,
letting parents decide where their children will go to school. That is obviously
offensive to those on the left, who think that our betters should be making our
decisions for us.

o Big Labor, Bad Losers
(PatriotPost.us) - If at first you don't succeed, blame Republicans and get your
cronies in high places to let you try again. That seems to be the strategy of
the United Auto Workers, a group that couldn't take the hint they weren't
exactly welcome in the right-to-work state of Tennessee.
After losing a 712-626
secret ballot vote at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant, the UAW is appealing
to the National Labor Relations Board on the grounds that statements by
Republican legislators at both the state and federal levels gave the opposition
an unfair advantage. Calling these tactics “a coordinated and widely-publicized
coercive campaign,” the union wants the results thrown out based on the
Laboratory Conditions Doctrine adopted in a 1948 case, where the NLRB held that
unionization votes have to be conducted as free from interference as possible.
Translation: the union wants their shop floor propaganda to be accepted without
question. The management in the Volkswagen plant was more than cooperative with
the UAW, giving their plant allies easy access to workers while denying the same
for anti-union workers. In a truly fair fight, the results may have been even
more lopsided against the UAW.
Oddly enough, in cases where Laboratory Conditions have come into
play, the complaint was from the employer charging that the union was overly
aggressive in its campaign, and in two recent cases ruled that union
interference wasn't blatant enough to overturn an election in their favor. But
since the shoe is now on the other foot, and knowing the current political
composition of the NLRB, it's likely the UAW will receive its second try – and
maybe a third, fourth, fifth, and so on until they get the results they want.

o Michigan's Right to Work
Upheld (PatriotPost.us) In March, Michigan became the 24th "right to work"
state following last December's vote to overhaul organized labor.
Unsurprisingly, unions -- infuriated by the state's attempt to liberate workers
forced to join their ranks -- responded quickly by challenging the decision. On
Thursday, an appeals court countered the bid by handing down another blow.
"The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the [state]
legislature had the authority to create the law that makes union fees
voluntary," reports
Reuters, "because it has the constitutional right to 'speak for the people
on matters of significant public concern.'" No doubt the ruling will further
irritate organized labor's man on top, Barack Obama. Recall last December when
he said, "These so-called right-to-work laws, they don't have to do with
economics; they have everything to do with politics. What they are really
talking about is giving you the right to work for less money. ... We don’t want
a race to the bottom."
It was a cute choice of words coming from the man who claimed to
have saved Detroit. As HotAir's
Erika Johnsen observes, "[U]nion clout is one of the major factors that
pushed the city of Detroit into bankruptcy and helped the nation to realize what
a 'race to the bottom' really looks like." But the fight isn't over -- unions
still retain the right to appeal, and we have no reason to expect them to give
up. But for now, as Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette affirms, "public
sector employees will receive the same freedoms and choices as private sector
employees. Everyone will be treated equally."

o
Teachers unions' alliance with Democratic Party frays By Seema Mehta, Los
Angeles Times - Public efforts toward school reform have some Democrats
questioning the party's support of guarantees that school districts have made to
teachers for decades. ...Teachers unions have been the
Democratic Party's foot soldiers for more than half a century, providing not
only generous financial backing but an army of volunteers in return for support
of their entrenched power in the nation's public schools. But this relationship
is fraying, and the deterioration was evident Monday as Democrats gathered here
for their national convention. A handful of teachers and parents, carrying large
inflated pencils, picketed a screening of "Won't Back Down," a movie to be
released this month starring Maggie
Gyllenhaal and
Viola Davis as mothers, one a teacher, who try to take over a failing
inner-city school.

The plot is ripped from the headlines: California has the
first "parent trigger" law in the nation, which allows parents to petition for
sweeping changes to improve low-performing schools. The first parent trigger
attempts have occurred in Compton and Adelanto; the former failed, and the
latter faces numerous obstacles. Parent triggers, along with other emerging
efforts, have some Democrats questioning their party's longtime support of
guarantees that public school districts have made to teachers for decades. Those
efforts also include merit pay, charter schools, weakening the tenure system and
evaluating teachers partly based on their students' performance on standardized
tests.

...Obama enjoys great support from teachers unions, and there
are no signs that they will desert him en masse in this election. But he has
angered them, notably with his "Race to the Top" competition that rewarded
states financially for making moves unpopular with labor, such as increasing
access for charter schools and encouraging states to use standardized testing as
one way to measure teacher effectiveness. This has prompted a vociferous
response at times. When a leader of the overhaul movement was hired to be
Obama's spokeswoman for California, the California Federation of Teachers told
state Democratic officials that if she was not fired, the union might not
"participate" in Obama's reelection effort. The spokeswoman remains on the Obama
team.

o
Union Money in Elections By
Amy Payne - This election
year, millions of Americans will donate to the political candidates and
initiatives of their choice at the local, state, and federal levels. But for
unionized workers, union dues come out of their paychecks and go to political
causes—and they aren’t consulted on where that money will go.
In July, The Wall Street Journal’s Tom McGinty and Brody Mullins published an
eye-opening report that
“Organized labor spends about four times as much on politics and lobbying as
generally thought.”

They broke down the unions’ political spending from 2005 to
2011: $1.1 billion “supporting federal candidates through their political-action
committees, which are funded with voluntary contributions, and lobbying
Washington, which is a cost borne by the unions’ own coffers.” But that was only
the beginning. Add to that another $3.3 billion for political activity from
“polling fees, to money spent persuading union members to vote a certain way, to
bratwursts to feed Wisconsin workers protesting at the state capitol last year.”
Who pays for this? The workers, McGinty and Mullins report: “Much of this kind
of spending comes not from members’ contributions to a PAC but directly from
unions’ dues-funded coffers.”

Despite findings that 60 percent of union members object to their dues being
spent on political causes, this practice continues. Why? In the 27 states
without right-to-work laws, many unions are able to put clauses in their
contracts that allow them to fire workers who do not pay union dues. If a worker
wants to work for a unionized firm, he or she is forced to join the union and
pay the dues, which can run from several hundred to several thousand dollars a
year. In a new
paper, Heritage’s James Sherk gives an example of this rule at work: “The
United Auto Workers (UAW), which organized General Motors’ Michigan factories in
1937, is a case in point. Michigan does not have a right-to-work law, so
union-represented workers must pay the union’s dues or get fired.” Notice the
year there—1937. The workers coming on the job in 2012 are bound by a vote taken
by their ancestors, essentially. “General Motors’ current employees never
had the chance to vote for or against the UAW. UAW representation was a
non-negotiable condition of their employment.”

o
Source of school bullying ID'd – it's the teachers union!
By Dave Tombers
- If you're poor and your children are getting a lousy education in C-, D-, or
F-rated Louisiana schools, there's hope for you. Or, there was until the
teachers union, in a fit of voucher rage, decided to resort to intimidation.
...The threatening letter sent to private schools across the state gives each
school until this weekend to opt out of accepting funding for low income
students, or be sued by the teachers union. “The LAE union threatens to initiate
litigation against individual schools if they do not pledge – in writing … to
cease participation in the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence
(SSEE) program,” says the American Federation for Children. “The letter comes
despite a judge’s ruling two weeks ago that dismissed a union attempt to get an
injunction stopping the program,” officials said. ...The
letter can be read on the Louisiana Department of Education website, which
released the letter to the public along with their statement denouncing it.

o Letter
from FDR Regarding Collective Bargaining of Public Unions written
August 16, 1937. - All Government employees should realize that the process of
collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the
public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied
to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make
it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the
employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no
place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. A strike of
public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent
or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such
action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to
support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

o
Why Unions Want Higher Taxes By
James Sherk and
David Weinberger
- No one likes tax increases, right? Not quite. Government unions do. In
California, government unions recently
postponed their contract negotiations until after a vote on an initiative
that would hike taxes. The unions support the initiative, and they don’t want
their new contracts to cause Californians to vote no. Their concern is
understandable. Heritage senior policy analyst Jason Richwine estimates that on
average
government employees in the state make 30 percent more than their private sector
counterparts. The minimum retirement age for most government employees in
California is 50. To maintain this, unions want—and need—more taxes. Similarly,
in Nevada, government unions are spearheading a ballot initiative that would
hike business taxes.
...Raising business taxes in a weak economy costs private-sector jobs—but
that does not deter government unions. Higher taxes still means more for them.
In Massachusetts, unions are pushing for a $1.37 billion tax hike. They want to
raise the state income tax to almost 6 percent. As the spokesman for a
coalition of government unions complained, Massachusetts does “not have a
revenue system that is bringing in enough revenue.” But has a government union
ever concluded that a tax system brought in too much revenue? Government
employees in Massachusetts, of course, can
start collecting
pensions at age 55. Tax increases hurt the economy. They cost jobs. They
take money out of taxpayers’ pockets. But they (usually) mean more money for the
government—where most union members now work. Small wonder, then, that the union
movement campaigns so heavily for them.

o UnionFacts.Com Vital Statistics
- Recent attacks by unions have them accusing corporate America of being
"greedy" resulting in slow job growth and a stifled economy. When you look at
the facts is it corporate America that's greedy or the self-serving unions? A
recent poll had over 90% of respondents stating that unions are bad for America.

o
The State of Union Paybacks By
Fred Wszolek- President
Obama started 2012 as he began 2011, by making one of his first official acts a
handout to Big Labor bosses bankrolling his campaign. The president issued
non-recess appointments for Richard Griffin and Sharon Block to the NLRB in
spite of the fact they had only been nominated for a weeks and hours before the
Senate concluded it business for the holidays even though the upper chamber
continued to convene in pro forma sessions. Griffin was the general counsel for
International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) and will continue to receive
pension payments from the union while on the Board, which is a clear and evident
conflict of interest. Block worked for Labor Secretary Hilda Solis who is one of
the most ardent supporters and defenders of labor bosses in the entire country.
All of this unfolds as news outlets report that labor bosses, the top
beneficiary of the president’s signature “achievement” in his first term –
ObamaCare – have received the overwhelming majority of waivers from the health
care law totaling more than 500,000 workers.

o A
Primer on What Unions Do to the Economy - Unions create a
substantial distortion within a market-driven economy. To raise their members'
pay unions must control the supply of jobs in a company or an industry. Unions
must prevent employers from hiring anyone without their permission. If they can
do this, they can expect the laws of supply and demand to work in their favor.
Holding down employment drives up union members' wages. In other words,
successful unions are job cartels, says James Sherk, a senior policy analyst at
the Heritage Foundation.

- Unions restrict competition for labor by limiting employers' hiring options.
Because unions often incorporate political efforts by forming interest groups
and lobbying, they often employ government regulations and red tape to restrict
market access to union-friendly businesses.
- The union wage premium amounts to between 8 and 12 percent -- this pay
differential over market rates reduces the total number of workers a business
can hire (average businesses hire 5 to 10 percent fewer after unionization) and
passes on higher costs to consumers.
- Unions act as an anchor on corporate investment: because they tend to demand
higher wages when businesses do well, businesses are less likely to allocate
resources to investments that would lead to that end. This results in a
15-percent loss in physical capital, and research and development.

Fortunately, the market inefficiencies that are introduced by unions are under
constant attack from an increasingly communicative and competitive global
economy.
- Within the United States, competition between states to attract employers,
specifically between largely unionized states in the north and right-to-work
states in the south, has caused a gradual migration of jobs towards the south.
- Just as foreign imports damaged the United Auto Workers' stranglehold on
American car manufacturing, increased international trade creates competition
that undermines unions.

This growing competition offers only marginal comfort, however, because
government-employed unions are largely unaffected by competition. Government
services do not face the same competition pressures that the private sector does
and have significantly deeper pockets provided by tax revenues. Until
public-sector unions disappear, taxpayers and consumers will continue to pay the
price.

Stop Public Unions
It’s really quite ingenious.
You see, your tax dollars go to support government worker unions, who turn
around and donate large chunks of it to liberal Democrat politicians who will
keep voting for more and more government spending.
Taxpayers are caught in the middle of a vicious cycle between government unions
and the Democrat Party. Government workers pay union dues that provide Big Labor
with deep pockets to support left-wing politicians. Then the politicians vote
for ever increasing spending to expand the scope of government, and add to the
membership (and dues collecting!) of the unions.
And as long as government worker unions exist, YOUR tax dollars will continue to
fund campaigns for Democrats from the courthouse to the White House.

In the beginnings of the union movement, the goal was to help workers negotiate
with private sector firms for better wages, hours and safety conditions.
Government worker unions on the other hand, do nothing more than extort huge
sums of money from American families and small businesses for inflated salaries,
cradle to grave healthcare and lavish pensions.

And they call it “Collective Bargaining.” It should really be
called “Collusive Bargaining,” because the deals are struck
between the unions and the politicians that rely on them for campaign cash.The
taxpayer literally has NO SEAT AT THE TABLE!

As we’ve seen in cities and states across our country, these unions are bleeding
us dry. Several cities have considered bankruptcy as a last resort to get out
from under the onerous thumb of the union pay packages. And under President
Obama, the number of federal employees has exploded – swelling the ranks of the
unions and generating even more cash for his re-election.

Government worker union bosses are not elected by the citizens and do not
deserve to have such a powerful say in running America. And Democrat politicians
have got to stop funding their re-election campaigns with taxpayer funds.

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the
labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must
become happy." Thomas
Jefferson (letter to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802)

Less than 60 years after the Constitution was ratified, French economist
Frederic Bastiat predicted, "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of
men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time
a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Index
of States' Standing on Big Labor Two public policy organizations
have joined together for a new initiative that aims to help taxpayers hold
government unions accountable, says OneNewsNow. The "Big Labor vs. Taxpayers
Index" is the collaboration of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and
Crossroads GPS. They say it gives policymakers, members of the media, the
business community and the public a "clear picture" of the union powers and
privileges across the states. "What we did is take each state's collective
bargaining laws, binding arbitration laws, paycheck protection laws, [and] open
meeting laws, and we had up to 11 points, which equal to about 1,100 data points
that we ranked each state on whether they were for big labor or they were for
the taxpayer," explains Trey Kovacs, a CEI labor policy analyst. Utah, Tennessee
and Texas were found to be among those most favorable to taxpayers. New York,
Illinois, Minnesota and New Mexico prove to favor big labor. Source: Chris
Woodward, "Index of States' Standing on Big Labor," OneNewsNow, September 6,
2011. "Big Labor vs. Taxpayers Index," WorkPlaceChoice.org, September
2011. For text:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1424070 For index:
http://workplacechoice.org/state-map/

"What does [the gasoline tax] mean for the consumer? Not only higher gas prices,
but more expensive milk, toilet paper, bananas, bottled water and anything else
that would ever have to be transported to our ungrateful selves," says Crowder.
In the video,
Crowder displays a pie chart showing where each consumer dollar currently spent
on gasoline is used by the oil companies: 32 percent to cost of crude, 17
percent to refining and marketing, 3 percent to profits and 32 percent to taxes.
Crowder adds that the federal gasoline tax results in higher unemployment,
because businesses cut back in other areas to cover transportation costs.

"Folks," Crowder says, "things don't just show up at your house, delivered by
magic beans and happy thoughts." In his video, Crowder also looks at the
relative size of political contributions made by oil companies, which is small
relative to other corporations and labor unions. He also notes that not renewing
the federal gasoline tax would give states more financial flexibility and
eliminate a federal regulation that states must use exclusively labor union
labor on state highway projects. In fact, Crowder concludes, the wishes of labor
unions have everything to do with why President Obama and the liberals are
fighting conservative efforts to let this tax on consumers expire: "When people
want to tell you that elections are bought and paid for, don't jump the gun and
go straight to Big Oil or Big PhRMA. Think Big Unions."

...

REPORT: Right-To-Work States Are Winning The Future By Jim DeMint/Jim’s Blog
(May 2011) - A
new report from U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) indicates that
Right-to-Work (RTW) states not only protect workers’ freedom, they also have
discovered a winning economic strategy over years of competition with other
states. This research shows that compared to forced unionism states, RTW states
have: More new residents More new businesses More new jobs Faster income growth
Currently, 22 states have right-to-work laws that protect the rights of workers
not to be forced to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment.
The RTW states are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa,
Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and
Wyoming. There are 28 states with forced-unionism.

SEIU drops mask, goes full commie A May Day rally in Los Angeles,
co-sponsored by the SEIU and various communist groups, as well as other
unions, reflected yet another step in the normalization of self-identified
communist and socialist ideologies in the Obama era. Not only did the SEIU help
to organize the rally in conjunction with communists, they marched side-by-side
with communists, while union members carried communist flags, communists carried
union signs, and altogether there was no real way to tell the two apart.
Southern California citizen journalist and photographer “Ringo” was on hand to
record the day’s events, and posted
a full-length
photo essay on his site Ringo’s Pictures. To bring this important photo
essay to a wider audience, I present here a small selection of Ringo’s May Day
pictures; visit his site to see
dozens more photos from the rally.

Barack Obama speaking at an SEIU rally on January 15, 2008:
"I’ve been working with the SEIU before I was elected to anything. When I was
a community organizer, SEIU Local 880 and myself we organized people, to make
sure that healthcare workers had basic rights; we organized voter registration
drives, that’s how we built political power on the South Side of Chicago….and
now the time has come for us to do it all across this country, and then we’ll
paint the nation purple, with SEIU!"

Indiana Democrat Fleebagger’s Hotel Bill Completely Paid for by Unions
By
Warner Todd Huston - A recent
campaign finance
report was released that shows that the entire $84,953.70 hotel bill at the
Comfort Suites Urbana was paid for by unions. That’s right, unions. This expense
report seems to have turned Indiana Democratic State Chairman Dan Parker into a
bit of a liar. OK, a full blown liar. You see, at the end of February, Parker
told reporters that he was paying for the bill himself. As
Hoosier Access so aptly says, “we now have it on record who the Indiana
Democratic Party actually works for. Let the record show that it isn’t the
people of Indiana.”

Thanks for Raising My Taxes -- What Else Can I Do for You?
By Ann Coulter - In 2010, three of the five top campaign contributors to the
Democrats were public sector unions. Service Employees International was No. 2
at $11.6 million in campaign contributions to Democrats, the National Education
Association was No. 3 at $8 million, and the American Federation of Teachers was
No. 5 at $7 million. ... Liberals don't love big government because they think
it's efficient, compassionate, fair or even remotely useful. They support big
government because they are guaranteed the support of nearly everyone who works
for the government. Public sector employee contracts are written by the union
and rubber-stamped by Democrats -- and the taxpayers only find out years later
that public school teachers are allowed to get a full year's pay for 30 days'
work over three years after they retire -- as is the case in Green Bay, Wis.,
where one out of every 12 teachers retired this year to take advantage of the
'emeritus' scam. This is what all the commotion is about in Wisconsin.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker isn't even trying to eliminate collective
bargaining for government workers' salaries. He only wants to eliminate
collective bargaining over their conditions of employment, which has led to
massive inefficiencies.

Big Abortion
and Big Labor - Another Democrat money laundering operation is in trouble.
By John Hayward - An unusual rally was held over the [last] weekend in
Wisconsin, in which the AFL-CIO acted to protect government subsidies for
Planned Parenthood. ... Unions are the primary conduit for converting taxpayer
money into Democrat campaign cash. Big Abortion is a smaller, but not
insignificant, pipeline. Both organizations harvest political power from people
who support them for idealistic reasons, and neatly package that power for
delivery to their chosen political party.

Political Incest by Paul Hollrah - The eighty-five percent of Wisconsin
voters who are not members of labor unions may soon have an opportunity to show
that they understand the nature of the relationship that exists between
Democrats and public employee unions, and that what is at stake is the monopoly
power of high-salaried union bosses... that, and nothing more.

â€¦In short, when members of the same political family (Democratic elected
officials and their brothers and sisters in the labor movement) are allowed to
sit down across the table from each other for the purpose of divvying up other
peopleâ€™s hard-earned money, that comes very close to defining the term â€œincest.â€
It is precisely why labor icons such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and AFL-CIO
president George Meany were so outspoken against public employee unions.

â€¦A very crude old joke says, â€œIncest is best; love begins at home.â€ Not true.
Most incest occurs when Democratic elected officials and public employee unions
gather behind closed doors to divide up the spoils of a corrupt political
system. Is it any wonder that Wisconsin now has more government jobs than
manufacturing jobs?

Democrats Lead Ranks of Both Union and State Workers State workers have greatest
Democrat-Republican party gap by Frank Newport, Dan Witters, and Sangeeta
Agrawal -- Union members, whether they work for the government or the private
sector, are more likely than nonunion workers to be Democrats than Republicans.
The gap is greatest among unionized state government workers, who are twice as
likely to be Democrats. State workers are also more likely to be Democrats than
are federal, local, or nongovernment workers, regardless of union status.
(Gallop Poll results at link.)

Uncivil Unions by
- Ann Coulter Democrats use taxpayer money to fund a government jobs program,
impoverishing the middle class and harming the people allegedly helped by the
programs -- but creating a vast class of voters who owe their jobs to the
Democrats.

Public Unions Force Taxpayers to Fund Dems by Michael
Barone - Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some
$400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave
Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle. Follow the money, Washington reporters
like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future,
who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in
turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In
effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced
to fund the Democratic Party. So, just as the president complained in his 2010
State of the Union address about a Supreme Court decision that he feared would
increase the flow of money to Republicans, he also found time to complain about
a proposed state law that could reduce the flow of money to Democrats.

Collective Bargaining 101:
When union leaders claim that collective bargaining is a right, Heritage is here
to provide
the facts. Our
new video is a helpful primer on the rise government unions and the monopoly
power given to them through collective bargaining.

To
Reform Government at the State Level, We Must Start With the Unions- By Chairman
Frank Donatelli - Maintaining the status quo, with public unions having the
power to collect compulsory dues and bargain on matters beyond wages, is
incompatible with the needs of 21st century government which must be focused on
changing programs and policies to adapt to a rapidly changing economic
environment. It's why, for instance, the private sector long ago abandoned
defined benefit programs in favor of 401(k) plans. Yet public employee unions
still fight this battle, even as it becomes clear that such indefinite
commitments cannot be sustained by the taxpayers. Our state governments cannot
take advantage of new technologies or reform ideas that make programs more
efficient if public unions feel threatened by those changes.

Public Employee Unions By Walter E. Williams - With all of
the union strife in Wisconsin, Indiana and New Jersey, and indications of more
to come, it might be time to shed a bit of light on unions as an economic unit.
First, let's get one important matter out of the way. I value freedom of
association, and non-association, even in ways that are not always popular and
often deemed despicable. I support a person's right to be a member or not be a
member of a labor union. From my view, the only controversy regarding unions is
what they should be permitted and not permitted to do.

According to the Department of Labor, most union members today work for state,
local and federal government. Close to 40 percent of public employees are
unionized. As such, they represent a powerful political force in elections. If
you're a candidate for governor, mayor or city councilman, you surely want the
votes and campaign contributions from public employee unions. In my view, that's
no problem. The problem arises after you win office and sit down to bargain over
the pay and working conditions with unions who voted for you. Given the
relationship between politicians and public employee unions, we should not be
surprised that public employee wages and benefits often average 45 percent
higher than their counterparts in the private sector. Often they receive pension
and health care benefits making little or no contribution.

How is it that public employee unions have such a leg up on their private-sector
brethren? The answer is not rocket science. Employers in the private sector have
a bottom line. If they over-compensate their employees, company profits will
sink. The company might even face bankruptcy. Of course, if private companies
can count on federal government bailouts, as did General Motors and Chrysler,
they can maintain a comfy relationship with their unions. No such bottom line
exists in the government sector. Politicians have every reason to grant benefits
to their political allies, in this case public employee unions. They don't pick
up the tab; it's unorganized taxpayers who face higher taxes. Ã¢â‚¬Â¦

Collectivist Tyranny By Mark Alexander - The governor plans to impose
economic realities on the collectivist bargaining ability of the state's
public employee unions by capping their wages with the Consumer Price Index
(unless increase by voter referendum), requiring union members to contribute 5.8
percent of their salary to their pension funds and picking up 12.6 percent of
their health insurance premium costs. For the record, private sector employee
pension contributions average 7.5 percent and almost 20 percent for health
plans. Most vocal among the state's 300,000 public employee union members are
protesters from the 98,000-member teacher's union, who are now paid, on average,
more than $75,000 in wages and benefits. Wisconsin parents should be protesting
against these teachers, too many of whom are clearly motivated more by tenured
job security rather than improving student performance. According to the latest
federal education data, pathetically less than 40 percent of 8th grade students
in the state's government schools meet basic requirements for math and reading
performance, even though the state spends more per student ($10,791) than any
other Midwest state. In Milwaukee, where the average teacher compensation
package exceeds $100,000, the graduation rate is under 50 percent, and for black
children it is below 35 percent. ...
Government
unions face no competition, so there is no impetus to produce or perform at
a higher level, and to call government union negotiations "bargaining" is a
gross mischaracterization. ...It is no small irony that protesting Wisconsin
teachers are sporting placards
likening Gov.
Walker to Adolf Hitler. Ironic, I say, because Hitler proclaimed, "We are
socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the
exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its
unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of
responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system
under all conditions."

Apocalypse
Now: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor by Michelle
Malkin - Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it
is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the
nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the
European Union. The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger
State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits.
Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running
a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little
more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance
premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state
workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the
soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big
Labor's collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the
ballot box. As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out,
the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would
still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest
among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits
think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate "would also be less than the
employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee-area
employers." This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the
White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama lamented
the "assault on unions." AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union
bosses dubbed Walker the "Mubarak of the Midwest" while their minions toted
posters of Walker's face superimposed on Hitler's. Moore goaded thousands of
striking union protesters to "shut down" the "new Cairo" while the state's
Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.

Elect
Your Boss Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Easy as 1-2-3! by Kyle Olson: There's a dirty little
secret in public school governance: for a few thousand dollars, unions can run
the table. How? Elect the school board. Then, at negotiation time, they're
sitting across the bargaining table from their friends

Right-to-Work States Outperform Forced-Union States
Right-to-work laws make states more economically competitive... Right-to-work
laws allow workers to opt-out of union membership. Contrary to much union
rhetoric, these laws don't ban or bust unions. They simply grant individual
workers the right to join or not to join, even once a workplace is organized by
a union. Workers who decline to join the union can't be forced to have dues
taken out of their paycheck and thus used to finance union political campaigns,
says the Wall Street Journal. Right-to-work states outperform forced-union
states in almost every measurable category of worker well-being, says the
Journal. A study in the Cato Journal by economist Richard Vedder finds that from
2000 to 2008 some 4.7 million Americans moved from forced-union to right-to-work
states. The study also found that from 1977 through 2007 there was "a very
strong and highly statistically significant relationship between right-to-work
laws and economic growth." Right-to-work states experienced a 23 percent faster
rise in per capita income over that period. The two regions that have lost the
most jobs in recent years, the once-industrial Northeast and Midwest, are mostly
forced-union states. Right-to-work laws make states more economically
competitive, but the bigger issue is about individual rights. Workers should
have the right to join a union but also the right not to. Source: "
Giving
Workers a Union Choice," Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2010.

Unions to Taxpayers: "Where's the Cash?" by Kyle Olson -
The unions and the education establishment judge Americans' value of public
education based on how much we're willing to spend. Americans, on the other
hand, are beginning to question what they're getting for all this money they are
"investing." Consider this: From 1980 to 2007, the U.S. increased K-12 education
spending by a whopping 571 percent (from $101 billion in 1980 to $581 billion in
2007). That works out to over $10,000 per student per year. All that money must
have increased learning, right? Afraid not. Every year, college-bound high
school seniors take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SATs) to assess "academic
readiness for college."Â From 1980 to 2008, the average SAT score for critical
reading stayed absolutely flat (502 to 502), while the average SAT math score
climbed from 492 to 515 Ã¢â‚¬â€œ an increase of just 4.6 percent. Even the left-wing
Center for American Progress
published a report concluding that there isn't much of a correlation between
spending and student achievement. But as 'Give Up the Bucks!' reveals, unions
have become the virtual pirates of public education, looting the ship even as it
is going down. The question you should ask is: who is benefitting from all those
education dollars? The answer will likely shock you.

UAW Seeks to Unionize Foreign-Owned Auto Plants Workers of the World Unionize.
The United Auto Workers union (UAW) is planning an organizing push on one of
three foreign-owned automotive factories in the U.S. UAW president Bob King told
members that the survival of the union depends on garnering more members.
Apparently, the union learned little from its near-destruction of the American
auto industry. King and his cronies, however, have their work cut out for them.
Foreign-owned factories have been historically resistant to attempts at
organizing. Some say it's because they are located in the South, which is
typically less union-friendly than the Midwest. While this may be true, it's
also likely that unions haven't been successful because the foreign companies
pay wages comparable to those demanded by the union without the bureaucratic red
tape and strong-arm tactics that unions inevitably bring to the table. The UAW
will announce within three months exactly which companies they're going after
but said it will be Japanese-, Korean- or German-owned. In the meantime, King is
revving up the union's one million active and retired members to take part in
picketing hundreds of dealerships around the country. We hope the UAW's tactics
won't sway these companies and their workers, lest they find themselves in the
same dictatorial grip as their American competitors. The UAW drove two of the
American Big Three to bankruptcy and now they want their shot at foreign
companies.

Union Bosses Go After Property Holders, Businesses & Girl Scouts
by Katie Gage - If you think Big Labor's agenda is confined to taking
away the secret ballot and empowering bureaucrats to mandate contracts
on workers and small businesses alike without their consent, their
latest scheme may surprise you. The most recent targets in the push by
union bosses to force unionization on employees and employers are groups
like the Girl Scouts, American Red Cross and Salvation Army.

...But why would union bosses want to deny access to the Girl Scouts,
American Red Cross and Salvation Army? Simple, union bosses want access
to private property so they can bully workers into joining unions and/or
scare away customers with inflammatory and misleading rhetoric. And the
AFL-CIO refuses to take no for an answer. Despite the consequences, they
have appealed to the Obama Administration for help, seeking a decision
from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would, in effect, so
constrict business owners' rights to determine what outside parties can
be on their own premises, that they would be left between a rock and a
hard place: either allow union bosses to solicit their employees and
frighten their clientele or say goodbye to giving access to any outside
group.

Richard Trumka is trying to force his way onto these properties so he
can gain access to handpicked employees of private companies to push for
forced unionization of all the workers. Business owners, not wanting
this type of coercion on their property, reserve the right to refuse
access to anyone whom they so choose. But the labor bosses want to force
employers to allow them access Ã¢â‚¬â€œ and they are demanding government
bureaucrats issue an all or nothing edict.

Small business owners are refusing to cower to Big Labor. In fact, a
coalition of them has submitted an amicus brief to the NLRB showing
their adamant objection to the AFL-CIO's demand. As their amicus brief
states, "the primary interest of the Coalition in this case is to
preserve the legitimate private property rights of employers, as they
have been recognized and upheld by the United States Supreme Court and
numerous courts of appeals." If the NLRB decides against business
owners, they will be forced to either allow union bosses to have access
to their property, or deny access to every group under the sun,
including those raising funds for the poor.

Support for Public Employee Unions Declines - With
states across the country finding that benefits for public workers are
becoming nearly impossible to fund in the current economic climate,
support for public employee unions has fallen. A new Rasmussen Reports
national telephone survey shows that 45% of Americans now at least
somewhat favor unions for public employees, while the identical number
(45%) are opposed to them. These findings include 21% who Strongly Favor
such unions versus 30% who are Strongly Opposed to them. (To see survey
question wording,
click here.)
In May of last year, 53% of Adults favored unions for public
employees, while 37% opposed them. By comparison, 51% now at least
somewhat favor unions for private sector workers, with just 39% opposed.

Disorganizing Labor The slowdown of New York City's
unionized snowplow drivers gives Americans a taste of government workers
shutting down cities, states and even countries when things do not go
their way...

Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions
By
STEVEN GREENHOUSE - Faced with growing budget deficits and restive
taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to Alabama, Ohio to Arizona, are
pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions, particularly
those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and
politics. State officials from both parties are wrestling with ways to
curb the salaries and pensions of government employees, which typically
make up a significant percentage of state budgets. On Wednesday, for
example, New York's new Democratic governor,
Andrew M. Cuomo, is expected to call for a one-year salary freeze
for state workers, a move that would save $200 million to $400 million
and challenge labor's traditional clout in Albany. But in some cases
mostly in states with Republican governors and Republican statehouse
majorities Ã¢â‚¬â€ officials are seeking more far-reaching, structural changes
that would weaken the bargaining power and political influence of
unions, including private sector ones. For example, Republican lawmakers
in Indiana, Maine, Missouri and seven other states plan to introduce
legislation that would bar private sector unions from forcing workers
they represent to pay dues or fees, reducing the flow of funds into
union treasuries. In Ohio, the new Republican governor, following the
precedent of many other states, wants to ban strikes by public school
teachers. Some new governors, most notably Scott Walker of Wisconsin,
are even threatening to take away government workers' right to form
unions and bargain contracts. "We can no longer live in a society where
the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are
the have-nots,"Â Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a speech. "The bottom
line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try to
put that balance more on the side of taxpayers." Many of the proposals
may never become law. But those that do are likely to reduce union
influence in election campaigns, with reverberations for both parties.

Big Labor's Snowmageddon Snit Fit by
Michelle Malkin - Come rain or shine, wind, sleet or blizzard, Big
Labor leaders always demonstrate perfect power-grabby timing when it
comes to shafting taxpayers. ... Confirming rumors that have fired up
the frozen metropolis, the New York Post reported Thursday that
government sanitation and transportation workers were ordered by union
supervisors to oversee a deliberate slowdown of its cleanup program --
and to boost their overtime paychecks. ...New York City Councilman Dan
Halloran, R-Queens, told the Post that several brave whistleblowers
confessed to him that they "were told (by supervisors) to take off
routes (and) not do the plowing of some of the major arteries in a
timely manner. They were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the
reductions in rank for the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the
rank-and-file." Denials and recriminations are flying like snowballs.
But even as they scoff at reports of this outrageous organized job
action, the city sanitation managers' unions openly acknowledge their
grievances and "resentment" over job cuts. Stunningly, sanitation
workers spilled the beans on how city plowers raised blades "unusually
high" (which requires extra passes to get their work done) and refused
to plow anything other than assigned streets (even if it meant leaving
behind clogged routes to get to their blocks).

Our government education system has been spending more and more each year, yet
the results have been the same. While unions demand higher spending - which of
course ends up in the pockets of their members - money is not fixing the
problem.
Those that have been in the trenches gave shocking interviews - stories of money
grabs by adults while children are left behind.
An executive director of a literacy clinic in Detroit - where high school
graduates go to learn how to read - compared the actions of the school board to
the Ku Klux Klan. "If they were sitting up there in Klan robes," she said, no
one would be tolerating what is going on, but the effect is the same. [Eight of
the 9 school board members are black.]

We tell the story of two Indiana teachers recognized state-wide for their impact
on students, only to be fired literally the next day because they lacked
seniority of their co-workers. Numerous leaders sound the alarm, but do elected
leaders have the courage to stand up to the all-powerful teachers' unions? The
tide seems to be turning, but the need is dire. The United States
continues to slip globally [pdf], with student achievement lagging behind
Iceland and Hungary.

In short, it's because our public school system is designed to benefits adults,
at the expense of children. The focus has been on spending - which invariably
ends up in pay, health benefits and retirement for the employees. "Kids
Aren't Cars" is an unflinching look at the state of public education in
America and what can be done about it. The filmÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Facebook page is
here.

When
Government Unions Win, Everybody Else Loses by
Tom McLaughlin - After the SEIU effectively drove the chancellor of the
Washington D.C. school system to resign, they gained a hollow victory. Not too
much good news about public education coming out of our nation's capital.
Michelle Rhee resigned as chancellor of the Washington, DC school system. She
was doing everything she could to break the left-wing teachers' union's power to
protect its deadwood teachers and principals. She modified the teacher
evaluation process by taking student progress on tests into consideration and
she fired over 200 ineffective teachers and administrators. She had the support
of Mayor Adrian Fenty, but other public employee unions including the infamously
left-wing SEIU
joined up to defeat him and pull the rug out from under Rhee.

The American Federation of Teachers spent over $1 million in the effort.
Unions won. Students lost. This came on the heels of another bit of bad news
last year in our capitol city when
Congress (which administers the District of Columbia) eliminated a school choice program for
1700 DC school children. President Obama, who sends his children to an expensive
private school in DC, did nothing to support the school choice program for poor
DC kids. Democrats are beholden to the teachers's unions, which are the biggest
supporters of that party nationwide, just ahead of trial lawyers. Schoolchoice
anywhere itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s offered is anathema to teachersÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ unions. Most of their political
capital is spent defeating school choice (voucher) programs nationwide. Here
too, unions won. Students lost.

Shortly after Michelle Rhee resigned, the DC school system started feeding
dinner to students as well as breakfast and lunch. According to an
article at change.org, "This new early dinner program will feed 10,000 kids who may
spend up to 10 hours a day at school in early-care and after-school programs."Â
So, now US taxpayers are feeding three meals a day to school kids in our
nation's capital. They're spending ten hours a day in school with early care and
after school programs, yet change.org is lamenting that food stamp aid may be
cut to pay for it. "Forty percent of households reported not having enough money
to buy food at least one time,"Â the article claims, and the federal government
is "robbing Peter to pay Paul"Â when it cuts food stamps.

...Most newspapers report the per-pupil cost for DC schools at $13,000 per
year, but if an article
in the Washington Times is correct, the real number is $24,600! That's the
figure you get when you take all the money spent on the schools and divided it
by the number of students. My only question at this point is: when are we going
to provide beds for them? We babysit them before and after school, we feed them,
we teach them to brush their teeth, teach them about the birds and the bees,
provide counseling - so what's left for parents to do? Where is it going to end?

The school choice program that Democrats in Congress cut cost the Washington
DC school district only $7500 per pupil. At $24,600 per pupil the District
spends, that would be a net savings of more than $17,000 per student. The 1700
students who took advantage of it were thriving. Their parents were happy with
it too, but the teachers' unions were not because it shone a bright light on
what a bloated, corrupt education bureaucracy the unions created and preserved.
If it expanded and was copied across the country, the teachers' union monopoly
would be smashed and Democrats would lose their biggest constituency. It had to
go.

Teachers Union Honors Homosexual Activist
The National Education Association has honored noted homosexual activist
Kevin Jennings. In his own book,
Jennings admits that as a teacher he did not report a case of teacher-on-student
sexual abuse. Jennings, who now heads the GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
Education Network, has also taught homosexuality to kindergarteners, and
participated in a conference where graphic sexual practices were taught to teens
among other notable misdeeds. Bob Knight, director of CWA's Culture and Family
Institute has more.

Unions That Won't Take "No" for an Answer The Obama
Administration recently made it easier to organize Delta airlines.
Delta's employees nonetheless voted the union down. Instead of accepting
defeat,
the union movement is now asking for a re-vote. They will not take
"no"Â for an answer. The saga began when non-union Delta acquired
unionized Northwest airlines in 2008. The International Association of
Machinists, the Association of Flight Attendants, and other unions
launched a campaign to organize the newly merged workforce. During this
campaign they sent a private letter to the National Mediation Board (the
agency that oversees union elections in airlines) asking it to overhaul
the election procedures to make it easier for them to win.

Under the Railway Labor Act (which also covers airlines), unions had to
win the support of a majority of employees. Any worker who does not vote
effectively counts as a "no" a union must have the support of a majority
of all workers and not just those who show up to vote. There was a good
reason the law set a higher bar for airline unions to clear. The Railway
Labor Act effectively bars workers from getting rid of a union. Once
they unionize, they cannot get out. So unions had to demonstrate active
support from a majority of all workers - a minority of workers could not
vote the majority permanently into a union. But union leaders want
workers to unionize, period. They do not object to workers being forced
into a union they cannot get out of. They simply want more members
paying more union dues.

So the unions asked the Obama Administration to overturn 75 years of
precedent and redefine a union win as the support of a majority of
voters. The Administration swiftly complied. The unions withdrew their
earlier requests for elections and re-filed them under the new rules.
Despite the election rules being rigged in their favor, the unions still
lost. Starting with 52 percent of flight attendants in early November
and ending with 70 percent of gate and ticket counter agents in
December, every group of Delta employees voted to stay nonunion. Workers
heard the union pitch and voted no. They had good reason to. Nonunion
Delta employees felt that their company treated them well. They also
earned 10 to 15 percent more than their unionized colleagues at
Northwest did. Why pay union dues to get little in return?

However, the union movement very much wants to collect those dues. So
instead of accepting defeat, they have asked the Obama Administration to
order a re-vote. The unions contend that the company so greatly
interfered in the election that it does not truly reflect employeesÃ¢â‚¬â„¢
desires. Delta's alleged sins? It discussed the downsides of organizing
with its employees and allowed them to vote online from company
computers. The charges are laughable, but the unions are very serious
about getting a mulligan. The Obama Administration has the power to use
such flimsy charges as the grounds for holding a new vote. They can keep
holding re-votes until they get the result they like. If the AdministrationÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s past behavior provides any guidance, then the unions
will get what they want.

Government Unions vs. Taxpayers The moral case for
unions "protecting working families from exploitation" does not apply to
public employment. By
TIM PAWLENTY When Americans think of organized labor, they might
think of images like I saw growing up in a blue-collar meatpacking town:
hard hats, work boots, tough conditions and gritty jobs. While I didn't
work in the slaughterhouses, I did become a union member when I worked
at a grocery store to help put myself through school. I was grateful for
the paycheck and proud of the work I did. The rise of the labor movement
in the early 20th century was a triumph for America's working class. In
an era of deep economic anxiety, unions stood up for hard-working but
vulnerable families, protecting them from physical and economic
exploitation.
David Crane, special economic advisor to Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, breaks down the numbers.

Much has changed. The majority of union members today no
longer work in construction, manufacturing or "strong back" jobs. They work for
government, which, thanks to President Obama, has become the only booming
"industry" left in our economy. Since January 2008 the private sector has lost
nearly eight million jobs while local, state and federal governments added
590,000. Federal employees receive an average of $123,049 annually in pay and
benefits, twice the average of the private sector. And across the country, at
every level of government, the pattern is the same: Unionized public employees
are making more money, receiving more generous benefits, and enjoying greater
job security than the working families forced to pay for it with ever-higher
taxes, deficits and debt.

How did this happen? Very quietly. The rise of government
unions has been like a silent coup, an inside job engineered by self-interested
politicians and fueled by campaign contributions. Public employee unions
contribute mightily to the campaigns of liberal politicians ($91 million in the
midterm elections alone) who vote to increase government pay and workers. As
more government employees join the unions and pay dues, the union bosses pour
ever more money and energy into liberal campaigns. The result is that certain
states are now approaching default. Decades of overpromising and fiscal
malpractice by state and local officials have created unfunded public employee
benefit liabilities of more than $3 trillion.

By Trevor Loudon While only 6,000 strong, DSA has considerable strength in
the labor movement, non profits, education and inside the Democratic
Party. While Marxist based, DSA's innocuous sounding name, allows the
organization to operate in ways and places that their allies in the the
Communist Party USA cannot.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Tuesday that labor unions
were the strongest force for "good government"Â in the United States.
Grayson was appearing on a live webcast with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to promote a new website that publicizes executive pay at the
nation's largest companies.

(CNSNews.com) The U.S. Postal Service's business model is not
sustainable, and generous, union-backed employee benefits along with
collective bargaining contracts are a big part of the problem, according
to a report by the Government Accountability Office. "USPS officials told
us that as mail volume declines, it would be more efficient to have a much
higher proportion of part-time workers than is currently available under
existing agreements," the report said.

Shared Sacrifice by Bill
O'Reilly - In these very tough economic times, the left is calling for
"shared sacrifice," which is code for soaking affluent folks as much as
possible. You may have heard some radio ads paid for by the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU) beseeching Americans to support
higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy so we can all "share" the
economic pain.

That message is incredibly stupid. Higher taxes on
corporations will inevitably lead to even more worker layoffs. Also, the
less money the affluent have, the less they will spend in places where
service employees actually work -- like hotels and resorts.

So there seems to be a major "duh" factor in the
sacrifice call by the SEIU. But not if you know what's really going on.

That union is a great supporter of far-left causes
like open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens and giant government
entitlement programs. In addition, the SEIU has taken the lead in
attacking the nonunion Wal-Mart corporation and calling for non-secret
ballots in union voting. The SEIU is a socialist outfit right down the
line. The union doesn't just want you to share their sacrifice, whatever
that may be; they want to take your furniture.

Unions Want to Take Over Your 401(k) By: Gene J. Koprowski - One
of the nation's largest labor unions, the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU), is promoting a plan that will centralize all retirement
plans for American workers, including private 401(k) plans, under one new
"retirement system" for the United States. In effect, government pensions
for everyone, not unlike the European system and regardless of personal
choice.

Employee "No"Â Choice Act: Increasing the Fed's Role, Again -
Liberals Opposed it in Mexico: In 2001, labor-friendly Members of
Congress, including EFCA sponsors, pressed Mexico in a letter to increase
its use of the secret ballot, saying it was "absolutely necessary in order
to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they
might not otherwise choose."

"No Employee Choice In This Act" - "It doesn't make any
sense-none, unless you are interested in intimidation and coercion and retribution" to have a public peition-signing to form a union,"Â said Price.
"This is just another nail in the coffin of American liberty and American
freedom. I for one, will not go quietly into the night."Â Congressman
Price, leader of the Republican Study Committee

Dancing to Big Labor's Tune by Newt Gingrich - After spending an
astounding $61 million to elect Democrats in the 2008 elections, union
bosses are getting their payback this week.

Yesterday, so-called "Card Check"Â legislation was
introduced in both the House and the Senate. Card Check strips American
workers of the right to a secret ballot and gives the federal government
the right to impose labor contracts on workers.

The timing of this assault on the freedom of the American workplace could
not be worse. A
new study shows that for every three workers coerced into joining a
union under Card Check, one job will be eliminated by besieged American
businesses.

Card Check Could Eliminate 600,000 Jobs In
Its First Year. That means that an estimated 600,000 jobs could
be lost due to Card Check in the first year alone -- and that's on top
of the over four million jobs already lost to the flagging economy. Card
Check is a job killer. Even Obama supporter Warren Buffet opposes it,
saying "I think the secret ballot is pretty important in the country.
I'm
against card check." Watch him
here.

But as far as Big Labor is concerned, a deal's a deal. Their goal is to
get their allies in Washington to ram Card Check through Congress this
week, before anyone notices that American workers and businesses are
losing fundamental rights.

What's happening in Washington this week is old style, quid-pro-quo
politics Ã¢â‚¬â€œ the kind President Obama pledged as a candidate to end.
Supporters of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s their
Orwellian name for Card Check) claim to be all about protecting American
workers.